by Kristy Tate
“This man is not your friend,” Wordsworth warned her.
A friend. Lizbet ached for a friend, but even as she did so, a wave of guilt washed over her because she knew her mother should be enough. Her mother worked hard to keep them safe, to provide food and warmth, to supply the books for Lizbet’s entertainment and education. Lizbet knew her mother had sacrificed her own life—a life with John —to keep Lizbet sheltered from the world and its evil men and cunning women.
But what if I don’t want to be sheltered? The thought was so astounding it halted her. Lizbet froze on the path to Daugherty’s shack.
Wordsworth pressed his nose to the back of her leg, urging her to go on.
I don’t want to be here anymore, Lizbet thought.
“Hurry, hurry, hurry,” a friendly squirrel chattered.
“No!” Lizbet found her voice.
“Go! Go! Go!” The crows swooped around her.
“No! I don’t think so.”
“Not safe! Not safe! Not safe!” the crows contended.
Slowly, Lizbet began picking her way toward the shack because she knew and trusted the crows. They were much more clever than most of the animals and were almost never wrong. Although, unlike Wordsworth, they were self-serving.
“Why don’t you think it’s safe?” Lizbet asked the crows.
“A gun! A gun! A gun!” the birds responded.
“He has a gun?” Lizbet halted again. She’d read about guns. They were mostly used and possessed by villains and soldiers, and as far as she knew, there weren’t any wars being waged on the island...which could only mean that this man meant them harm. “I have to warn my mom!”
“Go to Daugherty’s shack as your mom asked,” Wordsworth said. “I will protect your mom.”
Lizbet brushed past him, heading for her mother. Moments later, her knees buckled as a blinding pain slammed onto the top of her head.
#
Sometime during the short drive from his dad’s condo to his mom’s house, the gray skies had begun to drizzle. Not quite rain, and yet wet enough to coat the glass with a barely-there mist. The windshield wipers let out a squeak as they scraped back and forth.
As he drove, Declan’s dad switched from one talk radio station to another. The political pundits grated on Declan’s nerves, and the sports radio stations had only grim predictions. Declan leaned his head against the passenger side window and wished he was already at Duke.
Finally, his dad turned off the radio and cleared his throat. “Does your mom know?”
“I’m going to tell her tonight.”
“She won’t like it.” Which was code for she won’t help pay. But Declan wasn’t expecting her to, because financial help from her meant strings attached to his stepfather, and those were strings Declan couldn’t afford to pull.
“Mr. Neal said he’d give me more hours,” Declan said.
His dad sucked in his lower lip and slid him a glance.
“I know it won’t cover the tuition,” Declan said. “I’ll get a second job during the summer. I’ll make it work.” Declan’s thoughts went to his Grandfather Forsythe, his mom’s dad. According to his mom, he was as rich and old as Satan and twice as mean. His mom hadn’t spoken to him since she left for college, but Declan knew she occasionally received payouts from her trust fund and supposedly when the old man died, Gloria would be his only beneficiary. But as his mom said, men older and meaner than Satan don’t want to die because then they have to face God and be accountable for their sins.
Declan’s dad tightened his grip on the steering wheel and the unspoken words just go to the state university hung in the air. The University of Washington was, of course a great school. The UW had offered him a scholarship. And he could live at home—which was exactly why Duke was so appealing. Not only would he not be living at home, he’d be living on the other side of the country, away from his stepfather. Away from the parental drama.
His dad flipped on the blinkers, adding a clicking sound to the intermittent screech of the windshield wipers. The car rolled through the gates of Godwin Estates.
“Do you want me to go in with you?”
“No.” The last thing Declan wanted was for his dad to measure antlers with his stepfather. In those competitions, his dad always lost.
“You sure?” His dad cleared his throat. “Do you want me to talk to your mom? She has her own money, you know.”
He knew. His mom was a successful real estate agent. She often hired him to play the host at open houses for the mansions she listed. She had a theory that if you’re going to sell something, you might as well make it something big because it takes just as much effort to sell something big as it takes to selling something small. Gloria Godwin didn’t like to play small. She wore big jewelry, had big hair, and toted around a very big portfolio of homes on Queen Anne’s Eastside. She also had a big heart, which is probably why she had married Declan’s dad, and why she would probably help pay for Declan’s tuition if he asked.
But he wasn’t going to ask.
Declan hated his stepfather that much. He’d rather work six jobs than be indebted to Gaylord Godwin in anyway.
The Honda pulled up in front of the French chateau monstrosity his mother called home. As if on cue, the drizzle turned to a solid sheet of rain.
Declan pulled his hood over his head, bracing himself.
“Give your mom and Godwin my best,” his dad said.
Really? Why did his dad have to be so nice? Declan tried not to, but he despised his dad’s good nature. When the car came to a full stop, Declan opened the door and a wet cold breeze blew into the car.
“See you Sunday night,” Declan said without looking at his dad.
Godwin’s husky, Rufus met him at the door. “Hello?” Declan called, dropping his overnight bag in the entry with a hollow thud.
No one answered.
He made his way to the kitchen, his mom’s refuge, while Rufus loped after him, clicking his nails on the travertine tile. On the counter, Declan found a note from his mom propped up beside a plate of homemade peanut butter cookies.
Hope you brought your fancy duds because we’re going to celebrate! Marciano’s, eight o’clock! Be ready!
Did his mom know about Duke? How could she? He’d just gotten the acceptance that morning. But then, his mom had always had a weird mom-intuition vibe. And she had an amazing network of friends. Had she heard it from one of the teachers or counselors at school?
Declan scratched his head and picked up a cookie.
Rufus sat beside Declan’s Converse shoes and gazed up at him, looking much more humble and pathetic than a giant husky ever should.
Declan had compassion and fed him a cookie.
Rufus inhaled it in one bite.
“Don’t tell!” Declan commanded the dog.
Rufus licked his lips and shook his paw at Declan, asking for more.
“I don’t think so,” Declan said.
Rufus nudged Declan with his snout as if trying to tell him something. Declan brushed the dog away.
A buzzing interrupted the doggy-exchange. A slim black phone vibrated on the granite countertop. He knew it had to belong to Godwin as his mom’s phone had a faux diamonds encrusted case. Declan glanced at the text message from a Leo Cabriolet. Meet at eight. Usual place.
He briefly wondered who this Leo might be, but then the message registered. Eight. The same time they were supposed to be celebrating at Marciano’s. Declan’s heart lifted as he realized this might mean that for once he’d have his mother’s company without sleazy Godwin.
It might have been Declan’s imagination, but it seemed as if Heaven chose that moment to turn off the rain. A faint ray of sun shone through the windows as Declan popped another cookie in his mouth, gathered up his overnight bag, and bounded up the circular staircase to the room where he typically stayed when he visited his mom.
CHAPTER THREE
“A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows.”
�
��Francis of Assisi
From Declan’s Research
A gentle rain bathed Lizbet’s face. She blinked open her eyes. Light filtered through the branches. She found the shifting greens surprising, and she tried to process her surroundings. Where was she? Why did her ears ring? Why did her head pound like bongo drums?
She struggled to sit up. For once, the forest remained eerily quiet.
“Where is everyone?” she asked.
No squirrels, no scurrying mice, no lurking fox, no skulking opossum.
Lizbet closed her eyes against the pain and rested on the dirty ground. “Mom? Wordsworth?”
“They’re not here, Lizbet,” a familiar voice said. “I’m sorry.”
Lizbet bolted up and for a moment, her vision blurred. Dizziness twirled behind her eyes. She focused on the cat beside her. “What do you mean you’re sorry?”
Tennyson looked toward the distant bay. “He’s gone now. You’re safe. Follow me.”
Lizbet had never taken instructions from the cat before, but she did so now. Using a nearby tree trunk as a brace, she stood. Her legs quivered as she walked. “What happened to me?”
Tennyson stalked through the forest like a lion hunting prey. “Norrie dropped a tree branch on your head.”
Lizbet paused. “She what?”
“It was for your own good. You should thank her.”
“Thank her? I’m going to kill her. I’m going to turn her into an eagle stew.”
Tennyson didn’t reply for a long moment. “You mustn’t talk so casually of death as Norrie just postponed your own.”
A chill passed through Lizbet. “What do you mean?”
Tennyson didn’t answer.
Lizbet followed without any further questions. She knew as soon as she saw the house that something was terribly wrong. The windows wore a blank empty look as if they were the eyes of the dead. Ignoring her raging pain, Lizbet ran. “Mom!”
Inside, the towers of books had been toppled. Bent bindings, crumpled pages, the books were scattered around the room in disarray. Among the chaos lay Rose curled in the fetal position. Lizbet stumbled forward, knelt at her mother’s side and picked up her limp wrist.
A steady pulse thrummed beneath Lizbet’s fingers. “She’s alive!” Lizbet called out, but only the cat could hear her. “I have to do something. I have to get help.” How many days until Leonard the postman arrived? Lizbet tried to remember the date, and failed.
“I have to do something...” Lizbet stared at the cat. “I have to get help. I don’t know what to do.” She sucked in a long breath. “Where’s Wordsworth?”
The cat gazed back at her with unblinking hazel eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said.
Panic welled in Lizbet’s throat. She pushed to her feet. “Where’s Wordsworth?” she repeated more loudly.
Tennyson’s tail twitched to the left.
Lizbet saw what she didn’t want to see: her dog lying in a pool of blood.
“He died a hero,” Tennyson said.
“No!” Lizbet choked back a sob and stumbled toward him. She fell to her knees and pressed her ear to his furry, silent side. Despite his thick coat, he felt cold. Too still.
“You don’t have time to grieve,” Tennyson said. “You need to find help for your mother.”
“And I don’t know how to do that,” Lizbet sobbed.
“You must find a way.”
Panic and pain made Lizbet mean. “That’s really easy for you to say because you’re a cat. I’m a person. Almost a grown person, and I don’t have a clue...”
Wait. She knew one person who would help. John. But she didn’t know his last name. She stumbled toward her mom’s office, a place that her mother usually kept under lock and key, but today the door gaped open. Lizbet hurried inside, feeling like she had entered the Forbidden City. Papers littered the desk. Lizbet had always known her mother to be organized, if not tidy, and so she knew that someone other than her mom had to be responsible for the office’s chaotic state.
“Tennyson, how long was I passed out?”
The cat didn’t answer, but jumped up onto the desk and began licking his left paw, reminding Lizbet that the cat detested being wrong, and so when he didn’t know an answer, he simply refused to provide one. She had never known him to hazard a guess.
Lizbet did some mental calculations. It had been morning when the stranger had arrived and now the sun hung on the horizon, giving the stranger ample time to search the office. Had he found what he was looking for? What could he have wanted? Rose led a very simple life.
Tennyson jumped onto a small table beneath a cupboard and pawed the door. “In here.”
Lizbet found a black box cradling a small device with buttons numbered zero through nine. It immediately it flashed with lighted icons when she picked it up.
Tennyson huffed. “It’s called a phone. It’s a communication device.”
“I know what a phone is,” Lizbet said. I just didn’t know what one looks like, she thought.
“Obviously,” Tennyson said.
Lizbet pushed the small red button. Recalling the dozens of murder mysteries she’d read, she pushed the numbers 911.
“Emergency,” a voice responded.
Lizbet was so startled she nearly dropped the phone. Tennyson’s steady gaze bolstered her. “I’d like to report a murder,” Lizbet said, her voice warbling as she gazed at Wordsworth’s inert body.
#
Marciano’s sat on the Chebar River. Declan’s mom would rather sit at tables on the deck overlooking the thick canopy of trees than be inside. Beneath the chatter of conversations and the clinking of cutlery, Declan picked up on the sounds of the tumbling river, the buzzing insects, and his mom’s French manicured nails tapping impatiently on the table. Her smile grew increasingly brittle as each minute ticked past.
“Your stepfather should be here soon,” she said through tight lips.
Declan snagged his third roll from the breadbasket. The waiter, Chaz, had called them garlic knots. His mother called them oily carbs. Declan thought of them as filler food—good for not only eating, but also for something to do while his mom tapped out a frustrated rhythm with her fork while she waited for Godwin to show.
Declan tried to understand what had driven his mom from his dad to someone like Godwin. Godwin was the embodiment of everything his dad was not. Ambitious and driven, Godwin hid his true nature beneath a sheen of charm and a headful of hair gel. Declan found his stepfather has slippery as the garlic knot—and doubly distasteful.
Gloria’s phone buzzed with a text. Declan knew from the twist of her lips that the text was from Godwin.
“Your stepfather’s run into traffic,” she said, flashing an over-bright smile at him. “We may as well order.”
Declan glanced at his watch. Eight-thirty six. He thought about telling his mom about the text he’d seen earlier demanding Godwin’s presence elsewhere at this same time, but decided against it for the simple reason that he was happy to have his mom to himself for the moment. He loved her with a quiet ache, despite his anger and disappointment that she’d chosen Godwin over his father. In his heart, he knew she didn’t belong with either of these men. The one too kind and indolent, the other smarmy. He tried to think of someone who would suit his mom and the only image he could come up with was Clark Kent.
#
Lizbet sat in the overstuffed chair by the hearth. Despite the fire raging in the grate, she shivered from fear and shock. The man in the black uniform across from her ran his fingers through his pale thin hair. He had introduced himself as Officer Mayer. He looked about her mother’s age, but his skin was blotchy, and his waist thick. He held a small black device in his hand. Earlier, he had asked if he could record their conversation. She wasn’t quite sure what this meant, so she had complied.
“Let’s try this again. You say your mother’s name is Rose Wood, and your name is Lizbet Wood.” He kept on repeating the same questions as if he expected Lizbet’s answers to change.
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Lizbet nodded.
He sat back, folded his arms across his chest, and lifted one ankle to rest it on his opposite knee. “And yet, there’s no known record of either of you. According to our records, Rose Wood died more than ten years ago.”
“Can I see my mother now?”
“Your mother is being airlifted to the Queen Anne General.”
“General what?”
Officer Mayer looked blankly at her.
She thought him especially dimwitted, but since she had very little experience with men, she had no one to compare him to. “The word general is an adjective,” she informed him, “meaning widespread, or affecting most people. It can also be a military rank.”
“I know what general means!” Officer Mayer said.
“Well, which is it?”
“Queen Anne General Hospital,” Officer Mayer growled.
“Oh.” Comprehension dawned, making her feel like the dimwitted one. “She’s going to be okay, though, right?” Lizbet blinked back tears.
A look of compassion swept over Officer Mayer’s face. “We can’t be sure.”
“They’ll try and blame you,” Tennyson said. He sat perched on the back of Lizbet’s chair.
Lizbet twisted and pulled the cat onto her lap. “What? Why do you say that?”
“The staff at Queen Anne General is used to dealing with Jane Does,” Officer Mayer said. “They’ll take good care of her, even without insurance.”
But Lizbet wasn’t waiting for his answer.
“They think you did it,” Tennyson said. “The mice heard the officers talking outside. It will be easier for them if they can arrest you. You need to tell them about the man on the boat.”